1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus for handling articles more particularly for the insertion of at least one insert into a folded printed article.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Apparatus for placing inserts into articles, e.g. the magazine section into a newspaper are known in which articles are fed into a drum having radially-extending compartments, and the inserts are introduced during a half-rotation of the drum. This sequence of operation calls for a minimum time, at best in the order of 2 to 3 seconds, in view of the fact that the articles handled in this way are usually relatively sensitive paper products which must be supplied to and delivered from the apparatus.
If the properties of the known apparatus are compared to the production capacity of modern rotary printing machines, capable of delivering copies at the rate of 50,000 and more per hour, it will be seen that the known apparatus would be able to absorb the number of copies supplied by a rotary press only if the wheel has as many compartments and rotates or is driven at a rotational speed which would satisfy the following conditions:
The peripheral velocity (in terms of the number of compartments per second) must correspond to the maximum output of the rotary printing machine; The time required by a compartment to traverse that part of the rotation of the drum in which the operations required for insertion are performed must not drop below the aforementioned minimum time.
It follows from this that the known apparatus would have to be provided with a drum containing approximately 100 compartments which rotate at a maximum speed of 12 revolutions/minute assuming that handling is at a maximum rate of 20 copies per second with a processing time of 2.5 seconds. These specifications clearly show that the size of the known apparatus would have to be unrealistically increased to gigantic proportions if it is able to process directly the production output from the rotary press.
It has therefore hitherto been the practice to supply the output of a printing machine to several sets of apparatus which in principle operate parallel with each other, this being equivalent to multiplying the apparatus demand and slowing down the products.